I’m thinking of my years in prison:
the self-contained air stale with smoke.
I rarely had an allergy attack,
though there were times I felt I couldn’t breathe.
Other cons—call them patrons
of the Great Discontent—came & went,
their time on the rec yard spent
running laps, lifting weights,
shooting hoops with flattened balls.
I stalled, stayed in, listened to music
on my headphones, read books
in the absence of nature.
Those were the days—a small lie
I tell myself on the other side
of a sneezing fit, my skin itchy,
hair weighed down with grit.
Would I rather have prison
than Springtime? No,
I’ll take the rain, its mix
of force & tenderness, a cleansing.
--
Ace Boggess is author of six books of poetry, most recently Escape Envy. His writing has appeared in Indiana Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, Notre Dame Review, Harvard Review, and other journals. An ex-con, he lives in Charleston, West Virginia, where he writes and tries to stay out of trouble. His seventh collection, Tell Us How to Live, is forthcoming in 2024 from Fernwood Press.